But this was at last ended by a letter from David himself.  It was written to me.  He had sold his boat in Boston, and had gone to New York, where his letter was dated.  He was going to sail for California the next day.

“I have long been meaning to go,” he wrote, “but never thought of leaving in this way, until I reached the fishing-ground, last Wednesday morning.  It came into my mind all at once, and I kept straight along.  If I’d gone back, the old folks, maybe, wouldn’t have let me come, because, you know, I’m the last.  Besides, I thought I could go easier while—­But you know all about it, Turner.  I saw that you knew.  It has been very hard.  Somehow, trouble don’t slip off of me easy.  Taking everything as it was, I couldn’t stay by any longer.  Otherwise, I don’t know as I could have left the old folks and Emily.  I can’t ask you to stay, unless it’s convenient; but while you do, I hope you’ll have a care over all I’ve left behind.  You can cheer up Emily better than anybody.”

“The strength and the beauty of the house are gone!” remarked Emily to me, as I sat down one afternoon by her window.

Poor girl!  It was but seldom she was able to speak at all.  David’s sudden departure, and the anxiety attending it, had been too much for her.  Besides, she missed Mary Ellen.  That little country-girl had, besides her innocence and her good looks, a vein of drollery, which made her a very entertaining companion.  And then, being so quick-witted, and so kind-hearted, she thought of various little things to do for Emily’s comfort, which never would have occurred to her mother or Miss Joey.  Emily wanted her back again.  She had got over that feeling of hatred of which she once accused herself.

“It wasn’t her fault,” said she, one day, quite suddenly.

“What?” I asked.

“That she didn’t love David in the way he loved her.  I don’t think she deceived him.  He never said anything, you know; so, of course, she had no reason for being any other than kind to him.  I believe she felt badly about it, herself.  I’ve seen her, when she thought I was asleep, lean her head upon her hand, and sit so for a great while.  Maybe, though, it’s because I want so much to love her that I make excuses for her.  I wish she’d come,—­it’s so lonely.”

And it was lonely.  It was like remaining in the theatre after the play is over and the actors retired.  For Warren Luce, too, was gone.  His visit was only for the summer, and he had returned to his clerkship.

“How would it have been, if he hadn’t come?” I asked myself.  “Might David have been happy?  Might she have loved him as ‘Jane’ loved?  And how much of her heart had the Doctor’s boy carried away?  Perhaps his power over her was greater than she would own,—­greater than she knew herself.  Perhaps he was even then corresponding with her.  He might even be with her among the mountains.”

Thus I debated, thus I questioned.